The popularity of water-skiing dictates the need for a device for reeling-in a towline upon release thereof by a water-skier. It is standard practice to normally pull in the towline hand-over-hand, which normally results in the entanglement of the towline. Anyone who has encountered this problem will appreciate that substantial time is required to untangle the towline to condition it for use by another water-skier. It should be further obvious that considerable time is required to pull the towline into a boat.
One attempt to solving the above problems has been the provision of a holder which is held by a person in the boat who then proceeds to manually wrap the towline on the holder. This procedure is also time consuming and oftentimes results in entanglement of the towline. Furthermore, the unwrapping of the towline for placement in the water for use by a water-skier is also time consuming.
Manually actuated, gear driven apparatus have also been proposed for reeling-in or reeling-out the towline. Such apparatus are oftentimes unduly complex and do not provide for the efficient storage of the towline on a rotary drum thereof, nor do they provide for the quick-release of the drum for permitting free-wheeling thereof, during the reeling-out mode of operation. In addition, the mounting bracket for such apparatus are constructed for securing the apparatus at only one set location on a hull of a boat.